Long Beach to pay $8M for wrongful conviction

A man wrongfully convicted of murder 30 years ago will get a nearly $8 million settlement from the city of Long Beach.Thomas Goldstein, 61, has spent more than a third of his life behind bars for a murder he did not commit. He spent 24 years in prison before being released in 2004.

"I'd like to thank the taxpayers of Long Beach for this structured settlement of $7.95 million," Goldstein said.

Goldstein is grateful, but says no amount of money can repay him for the years he lost in some of California's worst prisons.

The former marine was convicted in the 1979 shotgun murder of a drug dealer not far from Goldstein's rented Long Beach home at the time.

"The conviction was based on two key pieces of evidence," said Goldstein's attorney, Barrett Litt. "An informant who later turned out had a deal he lied about in exchanged for his testimony, and an eyewitness who was coached to tell police that Mr. Goldstein was the person who committed the murder."

An appeals court found there was no physical evidence that Goldstein committed the crime. The court determined that testimony from the two witnesses had been unreliable.